Shopping Main Street Grinnell & an Iowa gift idea

I decided to skip the craziness known as Black Friday this year (I'm not a fan of the Black Friday sales starting on Thanksgiving night), so I asked my sister to join me on a Small Business Saturday trip to a place I've never been to before but always wanted to visit -- Grinnell, Iowa.

My family knows that I have to take pictures whenever we do anything together.  You can tell my sister (who is expecting a little girl in March!) is thrilled about taking photos. In the 20 degree temps.  I look like Rudulph, with my nose so bright!

We're not used to the cold temps yet (it was 80 degrees early in the week), so I didn't take my gloves off to take more pictures outside.  But we found several neat little shops in downtown Grinnell, including a shoe store, a Hallmark store with lots of fun holiday gifts, a flower/gift shop with beautiful home decor items (I'm already planning to go back when I have a little more cash after the holidays) and a kids clothing store that had the most delicious kids clothing (my sister wants to go back there after the holidays).

There were also several restaurants downtown.  We ended up at a Mexican restaurant (I didn't catch the name), but the food was excellent and a perfect warm up on a cold day.  My sister orders Cherry Cokes whenever we eat out together.

I ordered the "Speedy Gonzalez" lunch special: one enchileda, one taco, refried beans and Spanish rice.

And even though I had pumpkin pie for breakfast (I love Thanksgiving leftovers), I had to order the churros.  Don't they look festively arranged in a star shape?

We made a good dent in our Christmas gift list. And while I'm talking about Christmas gifts, I wanted to share with you a little present I bought myself from one of my favorite Iowa artists.  I order a calendar from the Steel Cow Gallery in Waukon, Iowa, every year for my office.  I love the colorful cow paintings. One day, I'm going to buy a big cow print, if I can only figure out where to put it in my house.

You can order a cow calendar, or other fun items like cow magnets and Christmas ornaments, on the Steel Cow Gallery website.

Did you shop on Small Business Saturday?  Or are you a die-hard Black Friday fan? I understand why people like to shop on Black Friday -- the awesome deals and festive atmosphere -- but I just didn't want to get up early this year.